2015 New Work

New Earth Series

Darkness is a candle.                                                                

Rumi 

My studio is my cave. When I enter the ‘cave’, I shut the door to the outside world. It is a place without distraction. Turning away from all external stimuli except the tools and materials that extend my hand, I climb under the warm blanket of sensory deprivation. That darkness allows a different kind of light to enter. The womb of the earth births that which arises from within—that is what I am after. I imagine that is why mystics enter caves, and why our ancestors made the first drawings in the deepest, most resonant caverns. What is it within us that has no name, cops no style or theory or political agenda, has no previous life? What bubbles up from the underground river when we are willing to swim in it? I don’t know. I do know that it is not the ego. It is not my identity in the world. It is not this world at all. It is a new world. It lies underneath all of the artifice and striving. The New Earth series was my attempt to go to that place daily, without any idea of where I was going. That completely unknown and unrecognizable space that is fresh, unadulterated, still wild. It is both cosmos and psyche. It speaks another language. It is a voice that is barely audible outside of the cave. I decided to place my trust in those markings